New amateur footage of Challenger disaster surfaces

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

Wow what a coincidence I was just watching old footage of the Challenger explosion yesterday. Most of the newscasts were confused at first because they lost visual site of the shuttle after the explosion.

I was in high school when it happened. They had announced over the loudspeaker what had happened. It was of course a big thing in schools because Christa McAuliffe was on the shuttle. My friends and I were all space nerds so we were pretty shooken up, but being teenage boys as well we were also making jokes by lunch time.

 

[ThankQ]

This was the first "Do you remember what you were doing when..." event of my life. I was 7 years old, and the Halley's Comet buzz coupled with the Teacher in Space program generated a lot of "space buzz" in 1985 and 1986.

I would have to think that Nasa has a ton of cameras from all angles set up to watch the take-off. This guy's video from how many miles away certainly couldn't tell them anything they wouldn't have gotten off of their own cameras. Don't you think?

No new information will come from this. It's just a new vantage

I agree that this video will not shed any new light, but I do recall that NASA sent out a thing asking for ALL video to be turned over for the investigation. At the time, no one knew WHAT evidence might shed light onto the cause of the disaster. It's easy to look back after 25 years and say this isn't helpful, but in January 1986, no one knew what would or would not be helpful.

 

[Emher]

I watched it in sixth grade. The teacher wheeled in the TV for us to watch it, and a lot of the kid's started crying.

This is how I experienced it, too, except I was in 5th grade, and by the end of that same school day, I had already heard the "What does NASA stand for? Need Another Seven Astronauts" thing. I was so sad and PISSED.

I would have punched their fucking lights out.

But seeing as I wasn't there and I was a year and three months old, I couldn't.

 

[knine]

I was in fifth grade. I remember it happening but don't remember much else. I've tried to supress most memories of grade school. I remember my wife waking me up when Columbia went down though. I could hardly believe it.

 

[John Picard]

Sad stuff. I was born on the day of the Challenger explosion. It's hard for me to imagine it affecting people so much because we seem to care so little about the space program now, at least the people around me. I don't pay attention to any of the launches that go on.

Small world: I turned 16 that day.

 

[KimMH]

I would have to think that Nasa has a ton of cameras from all angles set up to watch the take-off. This guy's video from how many miles away certainly couldn't tell them anything they wouldn't have gotten off of their own cameras. Don't you think?

Yes, that's why I said that in my post:

Why did this guy keep the video to himself all these years? He acknowledged in the video itself that he had recorded a piece of history. Maybe they would have wanted a copy for the accident investigation and for museums and the media afterward. Not that it would likely provide any further insights, but still, he should have shared it.

I did see that you had said that. But I still think there was no point in him sharing it. And to be frank, for all we know, once he gave it to them they filed it away in that gigantic room in a box that no one ever looks in.

He may have put it away as a way of dealing with it himself. People box up and put away terrible memories all the time. It would have served very little good to share it and add to the media frenzy; and to be so close to such a disaster must have hurt tremendously. It's one thing to know about terrible things happening in the world but quite another to stand witness. Accident and crime witnesses frequently find their memories blocked as a way to protect themselves. To be able to physically put that way might have helped him cope with his helplessness.

 

[Candlelight]

I'm still waiting for that other tape of the North Tower collision on September 11 to be released. It was shot by some mexican overstayer who didn't want to give it up in case they found out he was illegal (or something like that, been a few years).

I still remember the still image they caught from it, taken inside a car or truck looking over at the building.

 

[MANT!]

The man sounds like my old Optometrist from when I was a kid in Fla. right down to the
"They've got trouble"..

I was in the UK at the time, prior to the Challenger disaster the ITN news called it "The Space Shuttle" almost as if it was a USA-UK co-effort, after the explosion, they made it a point of calling it "The American Space Shuttle", distancing themselves from any involvement..

just something that stuck in my craw at the time..

 

[The Cutest of Borg]

I was a junior in high school. In the middle of first period, they announced over the intercom that Challenger had been lost. Every subsequent class had a TV tuned to one network or another and we watched things unfold.

A few years ago, our family was at Cape Canaveral for the 20th anniversary of the disaster. Within a few days you have the anniversary of the three worst space disasters in American history - Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia. They had a great memorial program for all three accidents, and laid wreaths at the Astronaut Memorial Wall. Glad I could be there for it.

 

[Spot's Meow]

The man sounds like my old Optometrist from when I was a kid in Fla. right down to the
"They've got trouble"..

The article does say that he is an optometrist, so I'm sure that it is your doctor.

 

[Thena]

I was in third grade, and my class has been following the Teacher in Space program. It was probably sheer luck we hadn't been watching it live. The school did have a television set up in the library tuned to network coverage. Our teacher took a moment to prepare us before bringing us down to the library to watch the footage.

I grew up outside Chicago and the Bears had just won the Super Bowl two days earlier. The thing that I remember most is how excited all of the kids were about the Bears and the shock of losing Challenger shortly afterward.

As for the guy who shot the video, the original article said that he lived in Louisville, KY, but had a vacation home in Florida, where the video was shot. His wife died last fall and the interim pastor at his church happened to be the archive director of the Space Exploration Archive. The pastor spent some time counseling him before his death, and that's how the he ended up handing over the video to the organization.

 

[sojourner]

I was 16 in high school, about 10 miles from where this guy was. We were outside watching at lunch hour.

By the end of Computer Math class (where we got to watch the closeup news footage over and over), it was pretty obvious to me and the other geeks that the SRB had burned through some how.

That was the day I learned to hate "management" as it was found out later on that the engineers had warned about launching.

Then the friggin NASA managers did it again with Columbia.

 

[Sakrysta]

My most distinct memory of the tragedy is the Punky Brewster episode that dealt with it. I was 10, but for some reason the actual event didn't stay with me like it did with so many of you. I've always been kind of sad that I don't have one of those "I remember where I was when..." memories for Challenger.